Environmental Group Still Unhappy With Xbox One Energy-saving Mode

US-based environmental advocacy group the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has welcomed Microsoft’s plan to give users the chance to activate the system's energy-saving mode during the initial console set-up period but remains unhappy with the way Microsoft may be planning to describe the differences between “Energy-saving mode” and “Instant-on mode” to new Xbox One owners.

Based on a screenshot Microsoft published earlier this month via Xbox Wire, the NRDC’s Noah Horowitz is disappointed with the language Microsoft has chosen to use to differentiate between the two modes.

The proposed new option.

“With this design, most users are likely to select the Instant-on mode because of the negative language such as "Slower start-up time" and "Get interrupted for updates" used to describe the Energy-saving mode,” writes Horowitz on the organisation’s website. “It’s also unclear whether Microsoft will ship its new consoles with the Instant-on feature already highlighted as shown above, which would require an extra step to choose energy savings instead.”

Horowitz notes there is no mention of the respective standby power levels for each option: “less than 1 watt for Energy-saving mode and 12.5 watts for Instant-on, which translates to an extra [USD]$33 to [USD]$75 (depending where you live) of electricity use over the typical five year life of a console, which is enough to buy an extra game or two.”

Horowitz suggests more neutral text to describe the Energy-saving and Instant-on options and that the Energy-saving setting should be the default setting should users not make a choice themselves.

Horowitz believes there is “no reason for a device to be drawing 12.5 watts 24/7 just so it can be ready to receive and install an update.”

“If your cell phone or tablet operated this way, the battery would run out of power almost immediately,” he writes. “These devices receive notifications that updates are available for downloading, often in the background while the device is in use. Microsoft's competitor Nintendo provides an elegant and effective solution whereby its Wii U game console automatically wakes for a few seconds hourly to check for updates. If an update exists, it downloads and installs it and then goes back to sleep at less than 1 watt. This results in a trivial amount of energy spent for background updates compared to Microsoft's current energy-guzzling approach.”

The NRDC expressed its concern regarding the amount of power the Xbox One draws in Instant-on mode late last month.

IGN has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can find him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly, or chat with him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.